Fire pumper spending gets OK

HAWLEY — Special town meeting voters agreed to spend up to $100,000 for a used fire pumper truck, provided the town supports a debt-exclusion vote in Tuesday’s special town election.

Flood damage from Tropical Storm Irene destroyed the Fire Department’s 40-year-old “back-up” pumper, and this summer the remaining pumper, built in 1981, developed leaks from the pumper to the tank, as well as cracks in the engine block. Fire Chief Greg Cox has said he wants to find a 15- to 20-year-old used pumper to be the department’s first-response vehicle, while the 1981 model will be relegated to backup.

Also, town meeting voters agreed that $4,200 was too low a stipend for the part-time town clerk, and they agreed to basically double the pay, to $8,500 a year.

Voters tabled an article asked to spend $300 from “free cash” reserves to be put into the “All-Hawley River Day” account.

Among the items approved were:

∎ $2,500 to the town buildings expenses account.

∎ $5,801 to the past fiscal year’s snow roads account.

∎ $1,500 to the Internet access account, for high-speed Internet in the Town Office.

∎ $10,000 to the highway equipment stabilization fund.

∎ $10,000 to the Fire Department equipment stabilization fund.

Voters also approved repairing Tropical Storm Irene-related road damage on East Road and Forge Hill Road, using borrowed funds authorized for storm-damage repair in anticipation of reimbursement from state and federal emergency management agencies.

They agreed that the town should support a constitutional amendment stipulating that corporations are not entitled to the constitutional rights of people, when it comes to unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns to influence election outcome.